Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 4571

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4571. 'And God said to him' means perception from the Divine. This is clear from the meaning of 'laying' in the historical narratives of the Word as perceiving, dealt with in 1791, 1815, 1819, 1822, 1898, 1919, 2080, 2619, 2862, 3395, 3509. The Divine as the source of that perception is meant by the words 'God said', for the Divine was present within the Lord from conception; the Divine was His actual Being (Esse) since He had been conceived from Jehovah. His perception therefore was from the Divine, but the degree of perception depended on the state of reception by the Human; for He made the Human within Himself Divine in successive stages. From this it is evident that because the Divine or God was within Him, 'God said to him' means perception from the Divine.


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